


The Man Who Fell To Earth

by Glassdarkly



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-12-20 09:43:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/885786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glassdarkly/pseuds/Glassdarkly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very long time after the show ends (a very, <i>very</i> long time), Spike and Angel are reunited. But will it be for the last time?</p><p>First posted to the Rekindlespangel Livejournal community.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Fell To Earth

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much in medias res. I hope it's not too hard to follow.

It was a thousand years before Spike came back. 

In that time, Angel had seen three globe-spanning empires rise and fall, the seas engulf coastal cities worldwide, a hundred major volcanic eruptions (North America was still shrouded in the fallout of Yellowstone) and the extinction of all large mammals save for humans and their domestic livestock.

Well, and vampires. Plenty of those around, especially in the former USA, where, by contrast, humans were pretty thin on the ground these days.

Angel was living in Europe again. The northern parts of the continent were still habitable. London had long since sunk beneath the spreading North Sea, but other places further inland looked pretty much as Angel remembered them, if more ruinous. Some even had power and running water.

He took work where he could find it. Mostly demon-hunting, because that was what he knew, and his other skills weren't much in demand now that everyone spoke the same language. But there were always demons that needed killing. The current ongoing extinction event seemed to have passed them by. 

Angel wished he didn't know why that was. 

One morning, just before dawn, he returned from a night's hunting, unlocked his front door and stopped dead in the hallway.

"Spike?"

There was no response from the bundle of contorted limbs at his feet. Spike's eyes - their lids stained a deep indigo - were closed. 

"Spike!" Angel dropped to his knees beside Spike's body. It had been centuries since he'd last seen him. Could this mean....

Angel drew in a sharp breath. He wouldn't even think about it, because if he was wrong, he knew he couldn't survive the disappointment. 

"Spike, I'm gonna lift you, okay?" Gently, with infinite care, Angel scooped Spike up into his arms and carried him to the bed. Spike was thin, but what there was of him seemed to be pure muscle. Angel was glad to put him down again. 

He stood for a moment, drinking in the sight of the pale, naked flesh, wreathed in indigo whorls, like Laocoon in the serpent's coils, then drew the covers over it, right up to Spike's chin. Spike never moved, not even to breathe. His skin was icy cold. 

Angel shuddered. He felt like a mourner at a wake.

"He's not dead, you idiot." Angel said the words aloud, more to reassure himself than anything. They sounded strange in his ears. It had been a while since he'd heard anyone speak English.

Hurrying to the kitchen, he warmed some blood in a mug and brought it back to the bedside. Maybe the scent would be reviving. 

Spike didn't react to it at all. 

In the end, Angel drank the blood himself, sitting on a chair next to the bed. He was tired, and it didn't surprise him to jerk awake some time later and find the light through the threadbare curtains sunset-crimson. 

Spike still lay, eyes shut, unmoving. Lifeless as a piece of funereal statuary. 

"Please wake up," Angel said, into the silence. 

There was no response. Spike's features were pure and clear, cut from marble. Save for the staining on the eyelids.

Angel frowned. Was it paler than it had been? Reaching out, he whipped the covers away, to find the indigo tattoos still writhing about Spike's body, but paler too. Like fading ink. 

Angel thought, _she's left him_.

A surge of hope went through him, but he tamped it down hard. If he was wrong...

"I have to go to work, Spike, okay?" Angel told the inert form. "I'll be back by morning."

Spike didn't stir.

Angel washed, dressed in his hunting gear, drank another mug of blood and prepared to leave. He told himself that if Spike was still here when he got back, he'd allow himself to hope a little. 

Angel spent most of the night on his belly, crawling through undergrowth, on the trail of a Brachen demon turned murderous. It made him sad for Doyle's sake to have to kill it, even though it had slaughtered an entire family of humans. 

On the other hand, unlike humans, Brachens weren't an endangered species.

Angel made the kill easily. He spent a messy few minutes beheading the corpse, because the dead family's relatives wouldn't pay him without proof. When he returned home, he was richer, but covered in blood and other less salubrious demon fluids.

The front door was half open.

"Spike!" A cold hand gripped Angel's heart and squeezed. He flung the door wide, expecting...

He wasn't sure what he was expecting. 

He reached Spike just in time to knock him clear as the first rays of sun stabbed through the dirty window.

"What the hell are you doing?" Angel roared into Spike's shocked face. "You could have killed yourself, you idiot!"

Spike gazed at him, slack-jawed, as if he couldn't understand him. Then he said, "Who the bloody hell are you?"

Angel blinked. It had never occurred to him that Spike wouldn't recognise him. Had he changed so much in the intervening years?

"It's me, of course," he said. "Angel."

Spike stared a moment longer. Then he laughed a humourless laugh. 

"Should have guessed from the stupid hair."

Angel's hand shot to his head, then dropped back to his side, too late. Spike could always do that to him.

"Now I have demon guts in my hair," he growled, and then, "Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Spike's face twisted. "What's it to you?"

Angel's own jaw dropped. This wasn't the reunion he'd imagined. "You know the answer to that question."

Spike's voice took on a sneering tone. "If you say it's because you love me, I might puke. Just warning you."

Angel swallowed hard through the sudden obstruction in his throat. "I won't say it, then."

"Good." Spike turned his back on him. He wandered away across the room, the blue tattoos rippling down the ridge of his spine, criss-crossing each buttock, pointing the way to the deep cleft below his coccyx.

Angel swallowed again, both aroused and disconcerted. For the first time in a millennium, he found himself wondering just what use the Godking had made of that part of Spike's anatomy.

Spike looked back at him over his shoulder, from eyes still hooded in indigo. "You stink of dead demon," he said.

Angel shuddered. It was true. "I'll go clean up." 

He headed for the shower, then turned back. "Stay away from the window."

Spike shrugged, as if it didn't matter to him one way or another. "Okay."

*

The low water pressure meant that the shower spurted rather than gushed and rarely stayed hot for long. But Spike's reaction to his appearance had rattled Angel and he wanted to look his best, so he took his time about washing.

Clean and dry at last, he stared dubiously at the old cutthroat razor lying with his meagre supply of toiletries. If he'd only known, he could have gotten the local barber to give him a haircut and shave. As it was...

No wonder Spike had reacted as he had. He must look like Angelus.

Angel smoothed his long hair and beard as best he could, dressed in clean clothes and went back into the bedroom. 

Spike was sitting on the end of the bed, just out of reach of the finger of sunlight filtering through the gap in the closed curtains. He was staring at the backs of his hands, where the indigo whorls were now a washed out blue. The sunlight glinted on the moisture track running down his cheek. 

He jumped when he saw Angel, as if he hadn't expected him, and his eyes flashed yellow. 

"What're you lookin' at?"

Angel shrugged, resisting the urge to wrap his arms around himself. "Nothing."

Spike eyed him contemptuously. "You look like a sodding caveman."

Angel attempted a smile. "Well, since you've come from...wherever you've come from, I guess that makes you an astronaut."

But Spike gave no sign that he remembered that long ago exchange. 

"What're you on about?"

Angel cringed in embarrassment. "Nothing," he said, again, quickly. He gestured at his hair. "If I'd known you were coming..."

Spike looked back at his hands. "Doesn't matter. Not stayin' anyway." 

"You're not?" Angel's stomach lurched. He might have known it was too good to be true. "How long till she...."

"That's not what I meant," Spike snapped. "She isn't...I mean..." His Adams's apple jerked. "Fuck!"

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Angel said, "She's not coming for you, is she?"

Spike stared at the sunlight - at the dingy room with its cheap furniture - at the discoloured ceiling over their heads. Anywhere but at Angel. At last, he said, "Fucking bitch has dumped me."

"Oh." Angel tried to keep his voice neutral. "I'm sor..."

"Don't bloody say it, all right?" Spike hissed at him. "You're _not_ fucking sorry."

Angel licked his dry lips. "You're right. I'm not." He took a step forward. "I waited, Spike. Like I promised I would. All these years...."

But Spike shook his head. 

"Not now, all right?" He stood up abruptly, pulled the bedclothes aside and got into bed. "Bloody knackered."

To Angel's astonishment, he fell asleep almost instantly.

Reduced to watching Spike sleep again, Angel grabbed a blanket from the closet and slumped into the chair, feeling scratchy and irritable. He'd had a hard night. Now he wanted to lie down, damnit.

And where did Spike get off treating him like this anyway? It's not like he'd told Illyria to give Spike up. She'd done it of her own accord. Idly, Angel wondered if she'd found herself another pet, or consort, or whatever Spike had been, and if so, who, or what, was it. 

Eventually, he fell asleep, awaking late afternoon to find Spike sitting up in bed, staring at him, head tilted in that familiar way of his, the sight of which made Angel's dead heart leap in his chest. Spike's expression was soft - almost wondering. No trace of anger in it. Angel kept his body relaxed and his eyes half-closed, basking in Spike's unguarded gaze. He held his breath when Spike reached out and tucked the blanket back around his shoulders.

Good to know that bitterness wasn't all that was left between them. 

In the end, Angel allowed himself to stir and moan, as if just waking, and at once Spike drew back, face closing down until his expression once again verged on hostile. 

Angel threw off the blanket, stood up and stretched. 

"Hungry?" he asked. 

Spike shrugged again, but the yellow flash of his eyes betrayed him. Angel wondered when he'd last eaten.

Angel warmed two mugs of blood in a saucepan over the single gas ring. _Gently does it. Don't want it to curdle_. Spike was still watching him. He was frowning.

"How long has it been," he asked, "since the last time we....?"

His voice trailed off. _Met?_ Angel finished for him, silently. _Fucked each others' brains out?_ Who knew what Spike was thinking?

"Five, six hundred years," Angel said. "I forget exactly. I went to the usual place on the usual day, but she never brought you. I went back on that day every year for a decade, but after that I gave up."

Spike's gaze went distant. "She prob'ly got bored with humouring us. 'Sides, she never was big on sharing." He re-focused on Angel. "Had no idea it'd been that long. Everything looks the same, except shittier. Was expecting flying cars, floating cities, or whatever."

Angel grimaced. "They came and went."

Spike's eyes widened. He gazed around him, as if only just realising where he was.

"What else has changed?"

_Where to begin?_

Angel poured the warmed blood carefully into the mugs. "Pretty much everything. The Poles have melted, for one thing. A lot less land now. A lot more sea." He handed one of the mugs to Spike. "A lot fewer people, though, so I guess it evens out."

"Global warming, in fact," Spike said. 

There was a hint of a question in his voice, and Angel nodded. "It happened just like all the scare stories. No outside intervention I'm aware of." He raised an interrogative eyebrow. "Unless you know different?"

"She wouldn't," Spike muttered, almost to himself. "But she wouldn't stop it either." He looked Angel in the eye, for the first time since his return. "Either way, she gets what she wants."

"Let me guess." Angel realised he was gripping his mug so tightly his knuckles were white. "The extinction of the human race. Demons retake the earth."

"Restoring the natural order, she'd call it." Spike's voice was bleak. "Crap, I've really bollocksed things up, haven't I?"

Angel blinked. "I don't follow."

At once, Spike's mouth twisted into a sneer. "Did you ever?" He tipped his head back and drained his mug, then gazed at Angel with yellow eyes as he licked his bloodstained fangs. "So, what else has changed? There still a Slayer?"

Angel took a sip of his own blood. "Turns out Buffy sharing the power used up all the Slayer mojo. She was the last."

Spike's features slid queasily back to human at mention of the name. 

"Buffy," he said, drawing the word out, as if testing it on his tongue. "Been bloody ages since I thought of her." He tilted his head again. "Did you and she ever get together? True love conquers all, an' all that bollocks?"

 _Huh!_ Angel grimaced again. So many years ago, it doesn't even hurt to think about her any more. 

Much.

He shook his head. "No."

For the briefest of moments, Spike looked relieved and Angel had to clench his fists to stop himself from hitting him. Then, Spike shrugged. "That's too bad. Was rootin' for the two of you."

Furious, Angel opened his mouth to retort, but then thought better of it. The look on Spike's face told him Spike was being sincere. Or thought he was.

Sure enough, "Don't look like that," Spike said. "I mean it. Can remember tellin' you last time we met to go and live your life. Not surprised you didn't do it, though."

"She was happy," Angel said. "I didn't want to spoil that." 

"Yeah?" Spike's voice had an edge now that Angel didn't like. "Not sure I believe that. I know she never got over you."

"She did, though," Angel insisted. 

At the time, he'd been glad, for Buffy's sake. Now, with Spike bringing back all the old pain, he wasn't so sure. Well, two could play at that game.

"When did you stop loving her?" he asked.

Spike flinched. "Don't talk bollocks. Always knew it was hopeless. 'Sides, had other stuff on my mind."

 _Me?_ Angel wanted to ask, but he already knew the answer to that, and inside him something wailed, _all those years wasted, and for what?_ "Illyria?" he said.

Again, Spike's response wasn't what he was expecting.

"You look bloody stupid with a beard," Spike said. "Always did. Got a razor?"

Angel blinked again. "Well...yeah. Just gotten out of the habit, that's all."

"Bring it here," Spike said. "I'll shave you. You could do with a haircut too. Scissors?" 

He threw the bedclothes aside and stood up. He was still naked, the tattoos nothing but faint lines on his skin. Apart from that, he was perfect - an ink-stained ivory miniature.

Angel felt very old and ugly suddenly - a man out of time. Worn out from living centuries longer than even an immortal should - and all because of a meaningless promise. 

Spike tilted his head again. "What you lookin' at now?" His voice had dropped to a seductive purr.

The words, and particularly their tone, roused Angel from his reverie. It wasn't he who was out of time, but Spike. Who stood in front of him, unchanged for a thousand years, like a fly caught in amber. Except for his eyes, which, Angel realised, were wild with fear. 

Suddenly, Angel felt a rush of pity for him, along with a flood of desire so strong it made him gasp. "You," he said. "I'm looking at you."

Spike looked down at himself. "Yeah? Why would that be?"

Angel frowned. What is this? Once again, there was something about Spike's tone that stopped the sarcastic retort that had sprung to his lips. Despite the very obvious attempt at seduction, it seemed like Spike really didn't know the answer to his question.

"Because you're beautiful, of course," Angel said, in the end. "And because I want you."

Spike's eyes flickered. "Razor?"

"Sure." Angel went to fetch it, very aware of Spike's gaze boring into his back.

*

Angel sat in the chair, an old towel around his shoulders, drifts of hair brushing his cheek as they fell to the floor. His ears felt cold. He thought grumpily that he would have to buy a hat before winter came around again.

"That's better." Spike's cool fingers brushed Angel's bare nape. "You look more you now. Tilt your head back." 

Angel did so. He kept his eyes shut while Spike clipped his beard close to his chin. 

"You're good at this," he said, hoping to start a conversation, but Spike's only response was an indifferent grunt. Angel sighed. One thing about Spike hadn't changed, for sure. He was still really hard work.

Then he sat up with a jerk when a weight settled on his knees. Opening his eyes, he found Spike's naked body straddling his lap. 

"Spike?" Angel looked into the blue eyes, searching for meaning, but Spike only set a finger to his lips. 

"Shush." A moment later, a soft brush, loaded with foam whisked across Angel's chin. Angel shut his mouth hurriedly. 

"There." Spike spread foam in a thin line between Angel's nose and mouth. Then he picked up the razor. The dull, overhead light glinted on the blade, and Spike's hand holding it trembled. Angel tensed, wary suddenly. 

"What are you....?" he began, but again Spike shushed him. 

"S'okay. I know what I'm doing."

Angel hoped he did. He forced himself to relax as the razor scraped away at the harsh stubble. His skin felt raw and exposed after the blade's passage. In fact, he felt raw all over, every nerve ending painfully aware of Spike's naked torso pressed against his - of Spike's soft genitals -and suddenly they weren't so soft - nudging his belly -of Spike's thighs clamping his together. Angel's hands gripped the arms of the chair, but they didn't want to. They wanted to reach out and slide down the trail of backbone, to where flesh divided into hard buttocks. Then they wanted to squeeze.

Spike's blue gaze was fixed on Angel's face - unblinking - oddly reminiscent of....

 _Her_.

Angel shuddered. He didn't let go of the chair arms. 

" _There_ you are," Spike said, at last. For the briefest of moments, his lips brushed against Angel's. "My Angel." The razor slipped from his lax hand and clattered on the floor.

Angel shuddered again. Dru had used to call him that. Was Spike mad now, like his sire? What had Illyria done to him?

Then the thought went out of his head as Spike kissed him again - harder this time, hands grabbing Angel's head to keep it still, tongue forcing itself between Angel's teeth. Everything about the kiss spoke of fear and desperation, yet Angel found himself responding anyway. He grabbed Spike's shoulders, pulling him closer, mashing their mouths together until their teeth clashed painfully. 

Spike's skin was inhumanly smooth and he seemed very fragile in his nudity. All in a rush, Angel realised that Spike probably hadn't worn clothes once in all these years, just the indigo tattoos, which had protected him like armour. Now they were gone, he was truly naked for the first time in centuries. 

No wonder he was so wary.

The thought made Angel drag his lips from Spike's and set him back a little. Blue eyes looked into his, blinking this time, angry, and terrified.

"What's the matter?" Spike said - sneered, rather. "Don't you want me anymore?"

Angel set a hand to his face. "Of course I do. How could you ever doubt it?"

"Sodding well fuck me, then." Spike grabbed Angel's belt and hauled him bodily out of the chair and onto the bed. Though being careful, Angel noticed, to keep himself underneath.

Spike rolled onto his belly, raised his hips and parted his thighs.

"Get on with it."

Angel stared. He had to admit it was an enticing prospect, but in the end it was easy enough to say, "No."

"At least," he hurried to say, as Spike turned to look at him over his shoulder, in outraged disbelief, "I will. I mean, I want to. But not like this." He knelt up on the bed. "What's happened to you, Spike? Please tell me."

"Sod this!"

Spike made to get up too, but Angel held him down with a hand in the small of his back. 

"If you don't care about me any more, I understand. It's been a long time. But I waited...." Angel gasped, swallowing tears he didn't dare shed. "Please. Just tell me."

For answer, Spike twisted out of Angel's grip, snagged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around himself, as if ashamed of his nakedness suddenly. He sat facing Angel, expression bleak as winter.

"I'll tell you what happened to me," he said. "I failed, that's what. And because I failed..." he gestured around the room with its dingy fittings..."I come back and find you living in a shithole." His face twisted. "Mind you, you probably like that, don't you? Always have to be the big, suffering martyr."

"That's not...." Angel frowned. Something had gotten Spike's goat all right. "I don't understand," he said. "What has the way I live to do with you failing somehow? You've been - I don't know where you've been, but a long way from here."

"Doesn't matter _where_ I've been," Spike said. "Just who with. Who do you think I was with?"

The answer was obvious but Angel hesitated. Was this a trick question? "Illyria?" he ventured, at last.

Spike looked away across the room. The indigo staining on his eyelids was the colour of smudged charcoal. 

"She's been Illyria lately, that's for sure. For a long time, though, she was still just as much Fred."

Angel drew in a sharp breath. Was this what Spike had been telling himself all this while? Maybe he _was_ crazy?

"Not really," he said, in as gentle a tone as he could. "Fred's soul was destroyed, remember? Nothing left of her but echoes. Illyria had Fred's memories, but she wasn't Fred."

Spike shook his head. "Bollocks. Fred was in there all right. The real Fred, I mean. The genuine article."

"But that doctor...." Angel began. "What the hell was his name?" It had been so long, he couldn't remember.

Spike cut him off in any case. "Bastard was full of shit."

Angel stared. "You're saying he lied. Why would he?"

Spike gave him his old _are you stupid_ look.

"Oh, I dunno. Maybe to get me to stop hitting him?"

"Say I believed you...." 

Spike looked away. "Don't bloody care what you believe one way or the other. You weren't there. You didn't see...." 

His eyes glistened. "She held out as long as she could, but she couldn't resist forever. Havin' me around kept a tiny chink in her armour open, but in the end even that closed over." Moisture slid down his cheek again. "Illyria's done with Fred - done with humanity. Done with everything that reminds her of it."

He looked Angel full in the face. "Done with me too."

Angel stared, lost for words. At last, he ventured, "So all this time....you think you've been with Fred?"

Spike glared. "I don't think. I know it." He stood up and walked towards the window, the blanket still clutched around him. "Also, just so you know, wasn't her that didn't wanna bring me to you, all right? Was me. I told her I didn't want to see you any more."

"You?" Angel gaped at him. "But...why?" 

When Spike turned and looked at him over his shoulder again, face blank and bleak, Angel faltered, "I thought you..."

"Loved me," he finished, after a moment. The words tasted like ashes on his tongue. 

"I do," Spike said, flatly. "Did then, do now. Didn't matter, though. I had to concentrate on her. Bein around' you was too much of a distraction."

"Being _around_ me?" Angel could hardly believe his ears. "Spike, from the day we took down the Black Thorn until the day she stopped bringing you back, I saw you one day a year. Just one fucking day. How the hell is that 'being around me'?"

Spike's face was hostile. "Don't try and make me feel sorry for you. You liked it that way and you know it."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. When they did, Angel felt sick.

"That's not true."

"Yes, it bloody is," Spike almost snarled at him. "Like I said, you just love being a fucking martyr. Only happy when you're miserable."

"No!" Angel shook his head vehemently. "You're wrong." 

_A thousand years. A thousand fucking years!_ The words pounded on the inside of his skull, like a drumbeat. _My son, everyone I loved...._

"Am I?" Spike laughed a sneering laugh. "That why you spent all those years alone when you could have been with Buffy? She loved you, you twat. Always bloody did, and you know it!"

This was insane. _Spike_ was insane. Angel took a deep breath.

"Look, Spike, believe it or not, Buffy and me not being together has nothing to do with me wanting to be miserable. She moved on. And so did I. To you."

When Spike's hostile expression didn't change, Angel went on, "Besides, this is all ancient history. Buffy's been dead for centuries. You, on the other hand..."

"What about me?" Spike snapped. 

"You're here," Angel said. "And you're wrong about me. The world's changed, and so have I. I was done with punishing myself a long time ago. Can't we just..." He swallowed the lump in his throat again. "Please, Spike. I love you. You say you still love me. I've waited so long. Can't we at least... try?"

Spike stared at him, wordless, the anger slowly leeching from his face, leaving only pain behind.

"Don't you get it?" he said, at last, voice a ghost of itself. "I betrayed you, Angel. Left you to rot. For _her_ sake." 

The lump in Angel's throat was back already.

"I get it fine," Angel ground out past it. "It just doesn't matter, that's all. You always were all about the girl."

But Spike had pulled the blanket tighter around himself and turned to face the window. "Not that it helped in the end. Fred's still dead. The world's still gone to shit, and you must hate me. Or if you don't, you bloody well should."

Angel opened his mouth to tell Spike he didn't hate him, but this time the words couldn't get past the damn lump.

Spike was looking at him again. His tone was flat and hopeless. "I didn't mean it, all right? All that bollocks about you an' Buffy an' your martyr complex. Thought it'd be easier for you, that's all."

His eyes bored into Angel's. 

"You shouldn't have waited for me, Angel. I'm not worth it. Best I just go now and leave you in peace." 

The hand clutching the blanket fell away, reaching out instead towards the curtain, behind which, the unforgiving sunlight blazed like a hungry lion sensing prey. 

_A thousand years! A thousand years!_ The drumbeat still pounded, and for a moment, Angel was so tired - so damn tired! - he wanted nothing more than to be done with it all - for the sun to devour them both. 

But only for a moment. 

He stepped forward, grabbed Spike's outstretched hand in his and held it tight, cradled to his heart. 

"Stay," he said.


End file.
